Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies says the team is “wrestling” with its RB22 machine as Max Verstappen grows even more frustrated with the new technical regulations.
Verstappen has made increasingly clear, and after his eighth-place finish in Japan, that he could walk away from F1 owing to his displeasure over the new rules, with the Dutchman not a fan of the high-energy management style of racing being demanded of the drivers.
He is enduring his slowest start to a season since 2016 and finds himself in ninth in the standings on just 12 points, having only made Q3 once, in China, following a crash in Q1 in Australia and elimination in Q2 in Japan.
As a team, Red Bull is suffering its worst start since 2015, when it had just 13 points after three races, with Verstappen and Isack Hadjar combining for 16 points thus far.
Speaking about where the team finds itself in the pecking order, boss Mekies believes the pace of the RB22 machine is about where Red Bull expected, but explained how the team is struggling to find performance and lap-time.
“We left Melbourne thinking we were one second off Mercedes and half-a-second off Ferrari,” Mekies told media, including RacingNews365.
“The biggest difference in Melbourne was that McLaren looked in reach there and Max came back from P20 to be bumping into the first McLaren, of Lando Norris.
“The gap was largely increasing in China, and you saw us starting to scratch our heads there about the car balance and car characteristics, and then [in Japan], there is certainly nothing to be happy about.
“But in terms of the overall gaps to our competitors, [Suzuka] did not look too disimilar to Melbourne, of being one second to Mercedes, half-a-second to the best Ferrari and now McLaren.
“That’s the reality, it is a combination of underlying performance, and we need to do more work on developments, and there is a layer of us not being able to extract enough from the package to give Max something to push with.
“I’m not suggesting that it is set-up tuning, I am saying there is something we’re wrestling with the car, which adds to our underlying lack of performance.
“Trying to solve these complex issues and complex limitations is our core business, and as much as it feels bad right now, that’s precisely what the Red Bull campus is set up to do, to get to the bottom of complex limitations like these and nail them.
“[We will find] developments that can mitigate them and improve, and it feels bad now, but I have full confidence as that’s exactly what our team is very good at doing.”
